General Ross was called to witness the human experimentation after Betty agreed with Bruce while I was somewhere eating pizza.
There was no way a janitor like me could be present in an important room like that but even with that there a room of activity I had immediately after Banner hulks out.
According to what I remembered from the movie and what I heard from their talks, the subject was to be administered with a myostatin primer which would allow him to temporarily absorb gamma radiations which was useless for me as it turns out that I can now absorb radiations of any kind, so that's a plus.
The serum was to be administered to the subjects hippocampus(when would people learn not to mess with the brain) while being blasted with radiations and boom, you get a hulking green mass of monstrosity instead of a veggie order of broccoli for lost vitamins.
I had all my bases covered but the question was did Banner have his?
They only had time to create three possible working serums and each was different than the last. The one Banner used was the one that had the highest calculated results with 67% while the others were below 40% so they were deemed failures and that was what I needed.
It was a risk I was willing to take with my ability my only hope to succeed.
The military would be called after the Hulks goes on a rampage and General Ross knocked out which would be my window to nab a super soldier serum? Hulk serum? Broccoli serum? Whatever the serum was called, it would be nabbed by me during that time.
Since there was nothing else to do I waited, waited until I hear that-
"GRAHHHH!" and there it is. Sounds as rageful as I remembered it.
Since I was in the laboratory complex, the sound was more terrifying as it echoed through the walls giving it a more ominous vibe.
I could here the screams and rampage happening in the lab as the lights flickered on and off. The crashes and booms from the lab gave me the only clue I needed.
The complex went silent after a series of loud thuds which signified the Hulk leaving the scene.
I rushed to the lab and saw Betty had fainted while General Ross was grunting with a broken arm. I knocked him out with a jab to the back of his head without him seeing me and walked to the cooling compartment where they preserved the serum and took the two that weren't outright failures.
Fortunately, Banner in his infinite rage almost destroyed every working thing in here so the cameras were busted.
I hightailed it the fuck out of there immediately and left Betty and Ross lying cold on the floor. Betty would probably be okay since she only had a mild concussion and Ross… he would be doing the world a favor if he keeled over. I had no reason to kill him since it didn't benefit me in any way and Banner would most likely shrug whatever Ross threw his way so me killing him would be pointless.
With two vial of workout serums in my janitors outfit, I walked out of the complex and used the sea of chaos to find my way back to my house.
It took me ten minutes to get to my apartment where I unloaded the vials inside a fridge and regulated the temperature to preserve it.
I got the serums and now the only thing I needed was a radiation shower. I could maybe use the radiations my cell absorbed during the HYDRA base explosion to carry on with the experiments but this was the only chance I would get since nobody else was creating these serums until the MCU started which was at least 5 years from now and that was not an amount of time I had so I had to do this right.
Which also brought me to the next problem, where would I find toxic wastes. I didn't know how people procured this shit but I needed to find it.
From what I know uranium and thorium had high amounts of gamma rays but I don't know if those were the best.
Thankfury I had the money and since I worked as a janitor in an R&D facility, I had just the right people to ask without being overly conspicuous.
With that cleared out I sank in couch as I watched the news that said an explosion occurred at a lab in Culver University and the chemical spills caused mass hallucinations where the affected claimed they saw a green monster not even knowing how right there were. Some did claim it was a government secret project that went awry, while others claimed the government were conducting illegal human experiments to further their own agenda or world conquest and some also claimed aliens. This was what everyone had to say about the explosion although the media shut them down.
Ironically they were all correct, even more so the last one.
With my problems hopefully solved I went to sleep to once more resume my highest paid job I've ever had.
…
The next day…
I arrived late the next day… very late because I didn't want to be the one who would clean all these shit after the military was done confiscating everything they wanted.
When I got there the whole place had been quarantined off due to residual radiations and that was when I knew I fucked up.
My body was a hotspot for radiations and I still couldn't control it yet given that the first time it happened I was unconscious and being exposed to radiations was not a regular occurrence.
So the moment I felt myself getting lightheaded I immediately left the vicinity before anyone read what was going on.
There were a lot of people I could ask on how to purchase nuclear waste in the facility but my best bet was Eric – Banner and Betty's assistant.
As someone who had access to Banner and Betty's research he was bound to know a contact I could get, which I did. Getting it from him was easy, a stupid reason and 10,000$ and he sung to my tone with optimal clarity.
I contacted the contact he gave me and we set up a meeting and after some negotiations which ended with me wiring almost a million dollars and buying a truckload of nuclear waste along with a cleared truck we shook hands and he left. He was to deliver the truck and the goods in three days.
If he ever tried to run without delivering, I would just give Coulson a call and cash in a favor and have him track the dude.
Did Fury know what I was doing with the money he gave me? Most likely, yes.
Did I care? NO.
S.H.I.E.L.D in its entirety would fall to a single super powered member of the Avengers. They were in the same category as HYDRA – tutorial level stuff. They were the tutorial guide I needed since someone set the difficulty of this world to Hell.
I would grow powerful to the point were S.H.I.E.L.D and most of the human powers on Earth would be inconsequential to me.
So while I was thankful to Fury, it wasn't to the point that I was indebted to him. We were allies who had a common enemy so we worked together.
And given Fury's personality, he would rather have as an ally than even a potential enemy. That was what I based our cooperation on.
Three days later, my dealer called me to a location we decided on for the trade.
The truck was loaded with nuclear wastes so much that I figured I might have overdone it. The amount of nuclear radiation from this things were more than anything Banner was exposed to which had me worried for a while before I shrugged it off.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
That was how I lived ever since HYDRA abducted me. The risks I took were what helped me escape and become strong enough to hunt them. I stopped fearing risks ever since my first brain dive – maybe I DID mess up with something up there.
The truck he gave me had clearance papers for the radioactive materials it carried. How he got it I won't question.
So with my truck of nuclear goodness and two vials of hopefully-not-so-green treatment I drove out of Willowdale for any secluded place I could find which took me to the outskirts of Virginia.
It was a little cave in front of a lake or was it swamp.
I parked the truck in front of the cave and started unloading the contents inside the cave.
After I was done, I took off my clothes and kept it to the sides as a precaution incase the unwanted happened. After that was done I took in a breath and started puncturing the cylinders that housed the radioactive wastes – all of them.
Why am I using a dosage easily 10 folds what Banner was exposed to? As someone from another world we had a saying, if something is not working then you are not using enough of it. They were just precautions, or so my mind kept telling me.
I could already feel the radiations pricking my skin as it was absorbed into my body.
Since the radiations were already set I injected both of the serum into a bigger syringe and injected it into my hippocampus. I didn't need a scan since I already knew every nook and cranny of my brain.
With a last low breath I injected myself the serum and immediately something changed.
I could feel my body glowing, flickering on and off as my entire self underwent drastic changes.
My bones creaked and broke countless times while also healing and reconstructing itself.
The pain during the entire process was too immense that I passed out.
…
When I woke up I found myself in somewhere too familiar that it gave me a sense of dread.
My central consciousness.
I could see the nervous stars of my consciousness shining with blinding yellow light.
This was much different than the last time I was here.
The last time I was here the stars seemed out of reach - most of them. But now, I could feel some of them, mostly the one that shined the brightest and seemed like it would explode any second now.
I didn't know what I was doing here or why I was brought back here, so with nothing to go on I reached to the shining star to somehow connect to it and the moment I did it almost felt like it would burst out if I didn't do something about it and most likely destroy everything here.
I started thinking of how to prevent the star from exploding and tried containing it but it seemed to not like that as it started giving me the feeling of glass cracking, which wasn't good.
I wracked my mind for solutions and came up with the most important thing I learnt during my time here – how to direct waves.
I immediately created a connection from it with one the smaller dim stars around it and watched as it immediately started lightning up and I got the gist of it.
When the star started giving me the feeling of being full to the point of overflowing I created another connection to a star near it and watched again as it filled up.
I kept on repeating the same motion until a region was filled with lit up stars and I saw as my mind started going into motion and connecting itself with the stars I lit up like it was drinking what it could from a well of energy.
Maybe it was what this place meant – a well of energy located inside my body.
With the mind being the first basis of evolution, evolution was bound to first start here.
If this was a well of energy since I was sure it wasn't only radiations that was stored but also heat and cold energy, then that means that I could theoretically, or looking at my central consciousness right now, most likely adapt to and then absorb any kind of energy I am being frequently exposed to and when it reaches a peak or the conditions are met, then I can evolve.
But then again evolution takes place in the mind first and then the body which means that while I have all this energy, my body wasn't strong enough to harness every dime of it maybe only a fraction but that fraction already made me stronger than I was previously.
These stars of energy most likely functioned as a plateau of strength I could reach if I was strong enough to control every iota of it. How strong would I be if I ignited every major and minor star in my mindscape? How then much stronger would I be if I could control every particle of each star here? My strength would probably increase by folds over the plateau.
This discovery made me very excited.
There was so much I could do with this much energy than just increasing my strength or the heat in my body.
There was so… so so much more.
——————————————————
A/N:
And that's a wrap.
It wasn't until I finished this chapter that I looked back at it and saw some eerily and uncomfortable similarities between it and wuxia novels, what with the mountains and caves and lakes and middle of nowhere and energy and stars and… you get the gist. Not my intention tho.
For those of you who were still hoping that I'll change my mind and create Hulk: The Star Wars Version then I'm sorry to once again inform you that there will be no MC turning into another Hulk. The MCU already has more than enough of big mean angry dudes.
Now to the reason for this note. [You can search both Adaptation and Evolution on the Superpower wiki for more understanding]
As seen before - and as most of you already know - MC recently got the power to assimilate energy, which in its own is hax when it grows stronger but as of right now he can assimilate heat, cold and nuclear radiations which I'm planning on expanding on.
Now these energies he assimilates aren't stored in the form he takes them in but rather they lose their properties becoming pure energy which he can convert to a lot of things which is the angle I'm working with.
Another thing I'm sure some of you will complain about(why? I don't know), is him absorbing what would have been enough to kill Banner during the Hulk's birth and that is where radiation/energy assimilation comes in.
First of all he didn't ABSORB it, he ASSIMILATED it – there's a difference. Absorbing it would mean taking it as it already is and making it a part of him, a radioactive human would be the result just like the hulk, but assimilating it means breaking it down and making it a part of him without the effect of being radioactive.
Make no mistake, he could produce radioactive energies with his own energy by giving it or multiplying the radioactive elements present in every known type of energy. Hope this clears that out.
Another would be his strength. *Exhales*.
Let's see. Basically MC is now a well of energy(I'll be using Gamers analogy so you'd understand for those that already don't) with his MAG stat over the roof.
Now that's swell and all but the bummer is that his CON stat is down the creek, probably in his low hundreds (100-300), which still isn't comparable at all to his MAG stat which would now be somewhere in the thousands(1000-9999).
If we were to compare it with the Hulk's stat, it would be like:
[Banner Draul
.... .....
CON: 9000+ — CON: 234
STR: 26 — STR: 177
VIT: 79 — VIT: 982
DEX: 14 — DEX: 150
MAG: 2 — MAG: 6782
…
UNIQUE SKILL [HULK] - WRATH OF THE ALL-MIGHTY:
-This skill multiplies ALL stats of an individual by 1/5th of the highest stat when angered or during intense emotions.
-When wrath is further triggered after the activation of this skill, it increases the stats by an additional multiplication of 0.25% of the highest stat with every new outburst.
]
In other words, the Hulk's body was built to hold vast amount of radiation which he can also absorb from his surroundings and uses it to increase his strength to illogical heights because his constitution is ridonculous.
MC went the other route since he didn't have the 'Wrath' skill but the 'Blessing of the End' skill which increases the users CON stat gradually over time without limit and proportional to adversities triumphed over and has been forgotten throughout history.
So instead of making the activation of the skill the source of his power, he rather made his power activate his skill EVERY TIME he uses it.
Do you understand? If you don't then then I'm sorry since I can't think of anything else. Sayonara!